So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[LizzieMaine]

Getting really tired of clickbaity "Ten (insert overpriced consumer item) we love!" or "Why we love to (engage in annoying fad)!" type articles. And the thing I can't stand the most is the profligate use of "We" in these headlines? Who's "We?" Not me! Enough with the attempts to make crass commerce all squishy and personal.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Do you experience that, too?

You are in train/multiple unit or railcar, your neighbouring seat is free and (mostly) young folks walk by instead of asking if the seat is free. But if you give handsign, they thankfully sit down.

Or in smalltown railcar, people come in, look just briefly to the superelevated seats over the motor bogies and then go to the middle part, instead of looking exactly if the elevated part has free seats, which very often has!

Something must have changed in the last 30 years. I mean, we kids in the 90s would have ALWAYS ask, if "this seat is free?".

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

And the thing I can't stand the most is the profligate use of "We" in these headlines? Who's "We?" Not me! Enough with the attempts to make crass commerce

Appropriation with blind assumption, or insistence on what is morally correct and incorrect really blows a gasket
in Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny I'll say.

 

[tonyb]

Getting really tired of clickbaity "Ten (insert overpriced consumer item) we love!" or "Why we love to (engage in annoying fad)!" type articles. And the thing I can't stand the most is the profligate use of "We" in these headlines? Who's "We?" Not me! Enough with the attempts to make crass commerce all squishy and personal.

This is among the reasons I don’t much object to ChatGPT.

It’s not just advertising, either. (If only it were.) So much of what I read online and in print is so poorly written that anything AI produces could hardly be worse.

 

[Edward]

This is among the reasons I don’t much object to ChatGPT.

It’s not just advertising, either. (If only it were.) So much of what I read online and in print is so poorly written that anything AI produces could hardly be worse.

A huge proportion of that poorly written stuff online is already AI generated. That's why you get so much stuff claiming to be about Harrison Ford's husband, or reports about well known celebrities being dead - or alive - when not.

 

[GHT]

Getting really tired of clickbaity "Ten (insert overpriced consumer item) we love!" or "Why we love to (engage in annoying fad)!" type articles. And the thing I can't stand the most is the profligate use of "We" in these headlines? Who's "We?" Not me! Enough with the attempts to make crass commerce all squishy and personal.

The utility company that supplied our electricity were bought out. The new supplier got off on the wrong foot with their first letter. It starts: "Hi Robert." It went downhill from then on. Everything about them was inept, especially their invoicing.

One of their letters, following my gripes, started: "Hi Robert, good news." The good news was that I was forty pounds in credit. I fired off another letter giving them both barrels, pointing out that had I been forty pounds in the red they would certainly not be all faux jolly, but because they hold forty pounds of my money, I'm supposed to celebrate.

They didn't improve, they are now history.

 

[tonyb]

A huge proportion of that poorly written stuff online is already AI generated. That's why you get so much stuff claiming to be about Harrison Ford's husband, or reports about well known celebrities being dead - or alive - when not.

I’ve let lapse subscriptions to print publications because the writing, mostly by staff, is just so poor. One magazine in particular was sold by its founders to a group that publishes several special interest magazines. It appears they keep costs down by not paying good writers who know their subject matter. It’s insulting to the paying audience to be presented poorly written and factually inaccurate content. ChatGPT would be an improvement.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Good thing.

I handled wood glaze on one of our old fashioned benchs, today. First time ever, I painted wood glaze and it was fun!
"Walnut tree" colour, looks fine.

But I haven't thought, that a bench would need more than half of the 750 ml can! But no problem, the wood glaze was provided by our housing-association, because the benches are our property.

BUT, again I have much more respect to all carpenters, which go through this grind 8+ hours, five or six days a week!

 

[Trenchfriend]

Good thing.

Anyhting better in the world, than coming home with much appetite and having a can of good old hearty peasoup?

 

[GHT]

You can stick this old age malarkey! Why is it that I can switch the TV on to watch the early evening news and be fast asleep within minutes but find sleep impossible at the usual hour(s) we associate with sleeping?

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
Happens to me all the time. If not for obligations getting in the way, I’d probably take a couple naps a day.

 

[Trenchfriend]

You can stick this old age malarkey! Why is it that I can switch the TV on to watch the early evening news and be fast asleep within minutes but find sleep impossible at the usual hour(s) we associate with sleeping?

Despite the age, do you consume daily caffeine?

 

[Trenchfriend]

My grandfather, an inveterate pipe smoker, had a "Nimrod" lighter, designed for use by hunters, hence the name. It was a long cylindrical thing that looked like a big carriage bolt, and the flame erupted from a hole in the center, which, as I saw him do it, was sucked downward into the pipe. One of these things --

View attachment 440934
The pipe reeked like a fire in a licorice factory, but I always thought the lighter was neat.

And I didn't came to the idea myself, but indeed it can be a lighter AND a tamper, if the pipe isn't too small!

Great thing! I think, around the old simplified pipelighters, it's one of the best, if not THE best construction.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Just a personal thing, really.

My wife is an excellent cook. Two of my favorite entrees that she is very good at preparing are prime rib, and poached salmon. However, she seems to lack confidence and worries needlessly over her results. And that's odd to me: in 38 years of marriage, I have never complained about what she prepares. I do confess to have damned with faint praise on rare occasions where she is admitting to a flop and is seeking my affirmation... but even then I always try to be diplomatic about it.

We usually buy the salmon directly from Native American tribal members who sell what they've caught that morning along the Columbia River. It's always very fresh, and a variety of salmon is always available. They clean and filet the fish for you. My wife loves to haggle for a decent price, and we carry an ice chest to bring the filets home.

The drama commences once we're in the kitchen. She acts as if preparing the already cleaned and fileted salmon is akin to handling toxic waste. She'll prepare another entree for herself as she won't eat it because she says that fish (with few exceptions) turns her stomach. And yet, on a nice bed of rice with a side of string beans, it's an excellent dish. My son & I love it.

She is always unsure of herself when she prepares a standing prime rib. And yet, again, the dish as served is outstanding. My son and I always eat enough for five men- and there's always plenty left over for sandwiches. Maybe red meat really is a guy thing.

Perhaps she just doesn't appreciate her skill level. Or perhaps it's taste: my son and I could live on fish. Whereas she can always tell if a kitchen has seen fish preparation within the last month (She worked as a nurse or a nurse practitioner for over 46 years and a finely developed sense of smell goes with that, she claims.).

And so it goes.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
We should all be so cursed.

Salmon can be an acquired taste. I wasn’t so fond of it in my early years, but 46 years of living in Seattle and environs changed that. (I don’t discount the possibility my tastes matured at some point over that span.) We have it frequently these days, even though good fish isn’t nearly so easy to find here in the middle of the continent.

Many northwesterners of my acquaintance plainly will not eat farmed fish. It’s not just the flavor to blame, either, but the conditions under which the fish is raised. The wild fish you’re getting straight from the Native fishermen is truly a luxury from my perspective.

 

[Trenchfriend]

What I always hated about good old Lachs, is, that the stupid "fish industry" and retail turned it from delicious special event enjoyment, you may have five times in year to daily "wastefulness" with much disrespect to mother nature. In the late 90s to the 2000s, Salmon was practically everywhere in Germany, offered like a unstoppable flood!

USA same??

 

[LizzieMaine]

I never cared for salmon unless it was smoked. Whitefish, on the other hand, I'll fight off a room full of cats to eat.

 

[tonyb]

I never cared for salmon unless it was smoked. Whitefish, on the other hand, I'll fight off a room full of cats to eat.

Yeah, lots of people share your tastes in fish.

My most successful fishing expeditions were going after lingcod, which isn’t really a cod but mentioning that aboard the boat will get a person nothing but rude looks. It’s a bottom fish, so catching ’em involves letting out the line until the sinker hits bottom, reeling up a foot or two of line. and then working on your beer until your rod bends over (no double entendres, boys) and then reeling that fish in, which might get strenuous, because lingcod grow to 100 pounds or more, although catching one that size is rare.

The flesh is tasty.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Yeah, lots of people share your tastes in fish.

My most successful fishing expeditions were going after lingcod, which isn’t really a cod but mentioning that aboard the boat will get a person nothing but rude looks. It’s a bottom fish, so catching ’em involves letting out the line until the sinker hits bottom, reeling up a foot or two of line. and then working on your beer until your rod bends over (no double entendres, boys) and then reeling that fish in, which might get strenuous, because lingcod grow to 100 pounds or more, although catching one that size is rare.

The flesh is tasty.

I'm told that there are towns on the ocean where one can purchase tuna that was caught that day as well. I'll have to check it out.

 

[tonyb]

I'm told that there are towns on the ocean where one can purchase tuna that was caught that day as well. I'll have to check it out.

It’s been a while since I lived there, but it used to be and perhaps still is that you could buy fish directly from the commercial fishers (no gender specificity) at Fishermen’s Terminal in Seattle.

As to tuna …

I was well into my adulthood before I had tuna that didn’t come out of a little can. It was a revelation.